Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead
by godfatherambs
Summary: Nadine neighbor, Johnny is not only a loud, royal pain in the ass, but he’s also extremely wealthy and a possible investor for her best friend’s clinic. Now that he knows what Nadine really thinks, he's determined to make things extremely difficult.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Nadine was tired and cranky.

They were two very foreign moods to the usually perky and bright nurse, and she wasn't quite sure how to feel about being so damn annoyed with her surroundings.

Most mornings she breezed into the Emily Bowen Quartermaine Clinic, four cups of house blend from Kelly's in her hand, feeling hopeful that today might be better than the one before. She handed a cup of coffee to the receptionist at the front desk, one to the doctor on call, one to the very owner of the clinic, and saved the last for herself. Even perky, bright nurses needed their pick-me-ups. She was always on time, always grinning, and always wildly happy to see the first patient of the day come through the door.

Patients meant the clinic wasn't a complete failure, that she wouldn't have to go back to working full time at General Hospital, and that her best friend hadn't made a hasty, bad investment like everyone said when he originally pitched the idea. Thankfully, the endeavor had been a success, which gave her a reason to be so damn perky, bright, and hopeful.

It was also very kind on her wallet thanks to Nikolas Cassidine. She would have come to work for her best friend for free had she been able to afford it, and he'd more than overpaid her for her commitment to seeing his project through. When so few people had faith that he could do something as wonderful as giving free medicine to the less fortunate of Port Charles, he had Nadine's belief to lean on.

Granted, it had taken a hell of a lot of believing on her part, but she understood his struggle. It wasn't everyday that a man lost the love of his life in a horrific accident, and he was forced to shove aside plans of marriage and babies and white picket fences. She was touched by Nikolas' determination to do something in honor of his late fiancé, and it may have been that very love that allowed her to believe in him.

"Nurse Crowell, can I manage to steal a moment of your time?" Dr. Hunter asked sarcastically, glaring at her as she stood next to their fourth – or was it fifth – gosh, it may even be sixth or seventh patient of the day.

"I'm sorry. I'm just-"

"Not doing your job," he hissed, motioning her to the other side of the curtain. She forced a timid smile at the patient before following him out, all too prepared for a scolding. "Is there a problem? You were late this morning, distant and short with each patient, and this afternoon-"

"Afternoon?" she grunted, furrowing her brow. "It's only…" She hung her head when she looked at the clock across the room. "I'm sorry, Matt. I'm just exhausted and-"

"I'm not Nikolas," he interrupted annoyed. "I don't give a damn why you're so upset, but I do care when the only nurse on duty is acting incompetent."

"I'm sorry," she said stiffly, pursing her lips together tightly. "Can you please keep this from Nikolas?" Matt rolled his eyes, muttering about her silly crush under his breath, and she chose to ignore his comments because it was the least of her worries. Nikolas had been under enough stress rounding up investors for the clinic and the last thing he needed to question was his staff. Sure, he was a billionaire, but the clinic only needed money. He wasn't making any of it, so he needed investors. "He has enough problems as it is."

"Whatever," he shrugged, tucking his clipboard under his arm. "Just try not to stab anyone with a needle in the wrong place again."

"It was one time," she hissed, stalking past him as she started towards the desk. He called out something she didn't quite hear, and she just glared over her shoulder. "I'm taking my break."

She tossed her stethoscope down on the counter, smiling briefly at the receptionist before starting towards the break room in the back of the building. The more she worked with Matt, the more she despised him. How in the hell he'd managed to come to work for Nikolas – someone who actually cared about the people the clinic helped – she'd never know.

Ha.

Stupid medical fellowship.

Damn Nikolas and his desire to find the best new doctor in the country.

And damn the size of Matt Hunter's ego.

Groaning, she kicked open the partially closed door of the break room and tossed herself down on the first piece of furniture she reached – an expensive, Italian leather sofa that probably cost as much as some of their monthly medical supplies – curled into a ball and let out a shrill scream.

"Bad day?"

She sat up, her cheeks flushing as she pulled herself up on the couch. "Something like that," she admitted, forcing an embarrassed smile as she looked at the _very_ attractive, _very_ well dressed man sitting across the room.

He chuckled softly, his eyes softening as he grinned – one of those wide, toothy ones that you just knew was sincere. "Well, don't let me keep you."

"From being miserable?" she asked, shoving her hair away from her face. She suddenly felt inadequate next to him in her nurse scrubs and messy ponytail – when was the last time she'd washed these? He looked so handsome and dapper in a pair of jeans and buttoned down shirt that he'd tossed a suit jacket over. She assumed all of it was designer, that the suit jacket was for that whole laid-back (but not _really _laid-back) look that was quite popular.

He looked amazing, and she hated him for it.

_See? _

She really was tired and cranky.

"Looked like you were ready to take a nap or…hurt someone. I suppose if I'm keeping you from the latter it's a good thing," he quipped, arching his eyebrows curiously.

"Nap," she repeated, smoothing her hands over her wrinkled scrubs.

Sleep.

She didn't even know what that was exactly. Between two jobs and Nikolas and worry over life in general, not to mention an all too hellacious move across town, she hadn't had any in days.

Weeks.

Maybe even a month?

"Unfortunately you don't get to rest much around here," she murmured, grimacing at the attractive man. Was it okay to grimace at a man who looked like this? "Too many egos and annoyances and peeves."

He grunted, looking surprisingly interested.

"I work two jobs," she ranted, not sure why she felt the need to explain herself to this stranger. He was looking at her as if she was either really amusing or completely insane – she wasn't quite sure which. And honestly, she didn't want to be either one. "I'm always at this clinic, which I don't mind because Nikolas is a very good friend of mine. I'd do anything for him, so if he asked me to roll out a sleeping bag and sleep in the waiting room, I probably would."

"I see," he muttered, his eyes twinkling as if they were holding some kind of secret. She tried to ignore how much that annoyed her; twinkling eyes were supposed to be endearing, so this had to be the lack of sleep getting the best of her.

"So I'm always here working or helping out and then there's General Hospital, which I couldn't leave even more understaffed. Epiphany would probably curse me if I did, and I have enough bad karma and luck in my life as it is."

She leaned back against the couch as she continued. "I also moved recently. It's funny because when I first moved here I was so excited about having a place of my own, something all mine. Of course, I couldn't really afford anything, and when Jason Morgan says that a certain part of town is dangerous you listen." He cleared his throat at the mention of the well known mobster and she didn't even want to imagine what was running through his head. "Not that I hang out with Jason Morgan or anything. Besides he's married with kids. Anyway, my – I – uh, my friend, Spinelli works for him, and we just run into one another from time to time. And unfortunately being Spinelli's friend means having Jason baby-sit you constantly because problems seem to arise whenever Spinelli's involved. Or maybe that's my bad karma again."

"Anyway, that's not important to what I was saying," she rambled, shrugging her shoulders. "I finally saved up enough for a nice apartment, and thanks to Nikolas' extremely high raise, I could afford to move. And you would think that they don't let just anyone move into Riverton Place. Jasper Jax seems like a business man who cares what kind of image he puts out there and-"

"Riverton Place?" he interrupted curiously, a wide grin spreading across his face.

"Yes," she answered, tilting her head to the side as she looked at him. "Wait a second, uh, who are you?"

"I have a meeting with this Nikolas you're so fond of," he replied, scratching a finger over his brow. It was a safe enough answer. Besides it wasn't like men in designer clothing would be lounging in the break room of a free clinic if they didn't have to. Unless they were insane, and well, in this town anything was possible. "So, uh, tell me more about this Riverton Place."

"Are you looking for an apartment?" she asked, not giving him a chance to answer. "If you are, I don't think I'd recommend – well at least not the tenth floor. Because there is the most annoying, loud person I've never met living there and they've become the bane of my existence."

"That's harsh," he chuckled, shaking his head.

"It's not funny. I haven't slept in an entire month. He – well, I assume it's a guy – because there's always some woman over there harping on him constantly. And the door slams after he tells her to leave, and he immediately starts blasting horrid, classical music. I mean, sure Bach and Beethoven are amazing, but when you have them turned up so loud that the walls shake – well, they just aren't-"

"Maybe he likes them. If he's in a bad mood, maybe they calm him down," he interrupted, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Well, I like Britney Spears when I'm in a bad mood, but he wouldn't appreciate having her shake his walls."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

She glared at him as the sexual innuendo sank in. "That's not very attractive."

"You have a lot of opinions about people and things you don't really know about," he commented, causing her cheeks to flush even more than they had when she first discovered him in the room.

"You don't even know me," she hissed angrily. "I'm just trying to take a break from my job, and you shouldn't – you shouldn't even be here. Nikolas has an office down the hall."

"He asked me to wait in here," he replied, rolling his eyes. "You're not the only who has a job and annoying co-workers and loud neighbors, you know."

"I have to get back to work," she muttered, pushing herself up from the couch. She jerked open the door to the hallway, stopping long enough to rethink how rude she'd just been. "I'm sorry. I'm just having a bad day. Please don't let mention this to Nikolas."

It was pathetic of her to beg a stranger to be on her side, but she was that desperate. Nikolas didn't need the stress, and she didn't need to worry about upsetting him.

"I won't," he murmured, clearing his throat as he got up from the couch, tugging at his collar. "Maybe instead I'll mention my own extremely annoying neighbor."

She gritted her teeth, refusing to let him get to her. If he wanted to make fun of her, that was fine. He would just be another bullet on the list of reasons she should have never gotten out of bed. If only she could just tell him to go to hell.

"He might even agree that she's annoying," he continued, his eyes twinkling again. "She has this bright, pink doormat outside her door and she cackles really loudly when she watches I Love Lucy reruns." Nadine's eyes widened, her slender fingers tightening around the doorknob. "She sings show tunes when she vacuums – at least, I assume that's what she's doing. It could be _anything_."

"This is a sick joke," she murmured, her cheeks turning a shade of red that she thought might never go away.

"And there's also this whole Ricky Ricardo thing. I don't know if she's doing an impression. Hell, she could even be dressed up as Lucy, but she's always yelling at him – or it – or the character-"

"He's a cat," she interrupted, shaking her head. "And you are a jerk."

"Me?" he scoffed, laughing in her face. "You stumbled in here and started talking-"

"This is a joke. Did Nikolas put you up to this? He knows how stressed I've been and he's always trying to calm me down." He just looked at her. "This isn't a joke."

"Uh-uh," he clucked, sticking out his hand. She swallowed hard as she took it, grimacing when he squeezed tightly and flashed that stupid, pearly grin. "Johnny Zacchara. 10B of Riverton Place. New to Port Charles. Nikolas wants me to invest in the clinic."

_Shit. _

This is precisely why Aunt Rayleen said to never talk to strangers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Johnny was bored and restless.

Since arriving in Port Charles _nothing_ had interested him in the slightest bit; no good bars, attractive women, or any place to just go and get into trouble. He hadn't been in the small town long; just a few weeks, desperately trying to get away from everything that had happened in Manhattan. He'd hope to come into the town, cause some trouble, get a rise from all the right people, and leave.

Instead, he'd been contacted by a legitimate businessman who genuinely wanted to go into business with him; despite his name, despite who his father was, and most likely because Johnny had come into _a lot_ of money in the last few months. He wouldn't have given the idea of donating to some small town clinic a second thought if so many people hadn't rebuffed it immediately, and clearly this was the only way to get a rise out of anyone for right now.

Well, that and the silly, blonde nurse with the loose tongue, who should have learned to ask names, addresses, and maybe even life histories before she started ranting off to a complete stranger.

At least now, he'd get to have some fun.

"What in the hell did you put in this thing?" Nadine spat, her head popping out from beneath his sinneak, a wrench in one hand and a pipe in the other.

"I'm not sure exactly," he lied, crossing his ankles as he leaned against the counter, a hand on his hip. "The damn thing just stopped working this morning."

She swore under her breath and disappeared back under the cabinet, continuing to mutter something about her Aunt Raylene and kitchen appliances.

He grinned happily, taking in the sight of her in a loose fitting t-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, completely at his beck and call. Normally, he'd use this kind of situation for a different result, but something told him this morning when he was emptying out his cereal bowl that shoving a couple spoons down the garbage disposal might prove to be more fun.

After all, she was the one willing to do anything to keep Nikolas from finding out that she'd insulted one of the wealthiest possible investors in his sad, little clinic.

Johnny had done his research on Nikolas, his business, and his family legacy, and was a little saddened to find out that the man's fiancé had died the very night he proposed, murdered by some serial killer who'd made his way into Port Charles. It was a tragic loss, the kind Johnny knew too well, but it didn't really help him sympathize with the Greek Prince. His sister, Claudia, came to mind and her motto that love kills, which somehow managed to prove truthful time and time again.

"Spoons!?!" she cried, popping out from beneath the sink, two very bent spoons and a butter knife (he had no idea where that came from) clenched in her fists. She tossed the wrench down on the ground along with the pipe and pushed herself up from the floor. "How in the hell did you manage to get two spoons and a butter – oh, you jerk!" She narrowed her eyes and slammed the silverware into the sink. "You did this on purpose."

"You said you were willing to do anything," he shrugged, flashing a pearly grin that failed to charm her. He almost laughed at the sight of her standing in his kitchen, hands on her hips, dirty-faced (he didn't even want to think about what was beneath his sink) and angry. "I just wanted to see how far you'd go."

"You could have called for building maintenance," she griped, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Her nose twitched at the black smudge she'd wiped from her face, and he just continued to grin.

"You owe me for being so damn insulting," he reminded her, holding out his hand and starting to count off. "Bad, classical music. Annoying, harpy whore – though I think my sister would find that quite offensive, but I'll try not to let her know. Did I miss anything?"

"Just the part where you equally insulted me," she growled, folding her arms over her chest and blowing her hair from her face.

"Only because you insulted me first," he pointed out, causing her to scowl.

"Are you five years old?" she asked exhaustedly.

"You're asking me that?" he asked, placing a hand on his chest. "I got a closer look at your doormat this morning, Ms. Hello Kitty."

"Jerk," she hissed, kicking the pieces of piping around on his floor. "Looks like you will have to call maintenance now because I-"

"Uh-uh," he interrupted, shaking his head. "You said you were willing to do anything."

"You woke me up at seven thirty this morning – on my damn morning offf, after pulling a late shift at General Hospital – to unclog your stupid garbage disposal, which you clogged yourself. I did my time, now give Nikolas some money and go the hell away."

Ha.

He almost laughed aloud.

It was handy being friends with the owner of the clinic and a member on the hospital board. Who knew the mess that his father had left him would actually prove to be helpful.

"Wow," he murmured amazed. "What a way to treat someone who is actually trying to help your best friend do some good-"

"Look, I'm sorry," she apologized, taking a deep breath. "I'm exhausted and annoyed and I have to be at the clinic in a couple hours. Like I told you yesterday, I'm not getting any sleep and it's partly your fault." She stepped closer to him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "You turned your stereo up last night on purpose."

He shrugged and stepped towards her. "I couldn't sleep. Get some earplugs."

"I couldn't sleep either," she said, gritting her teeth. "So keep your damn music turned down."

He smirked, taking another step forward. "I turned it up so I could hear it over TV Land."

"My television is not that loud."

"Is."

"You really are all of five years old," she hissed, shaking her head and starting towards the door.

He reached out, grabbing her by the wrist, and tugging ed her back to him. "We're not through yet, Nurse Crowell. I'm having dinner with Nikolas tonight, and I'm sure he's going to ask me what I-"

"What the hell do you want me to do?" she asked, jerking her arm away. "Mop your floors? Polish your coffee table? Make your bed? Because I'm sure a man like you could hire a maid."

"Maybe I want you," he replied, meaning to clean, but of course, she took it as any way but that.

Her eyes widened, and she looked briefly amused, then disgusted, and lastly really upset. "You're disgusting. Is that what you use your money for? You think I offended you so badly that I'd sleep with you to keep this from Nikolas? Or maybe this is like Indecent Proposal and you think if you offer me a million dollars-"

"You said you'd do anything for your best friend," he reminded her, smirking widely.

"You're a pig. What kind of man just thinks he can offer a woman money to sleep with her? Do people really do that? I mean, I grew up in a small town and I don't go into the city often, so I'm sure they have those high class hookers, and honestly, if that's you're thing, Nikolas is probably better off-"

"Actually," he interrupted firmly, waving a hand at her to try and silence her. "I was going to present a different type of challenge." She stiffened, her eyes darkening, but she didn't start towards the door. "I want to know why I should donate to the clinic."

"That's it?" she scoffed, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You'll be helping lots of sick people who can't afford to get help. General Hospital won't help the uninsured and Nikolas-"

"No, no, no, this is boring," he cut in, raking a hand through his hair. He clasped his hands in front of him, pointing at her as he grinned. "I want you to show me – to convince me - why, and I don't want some silly speech about it being good and for love and Nikolas doing something right." She looked confused. "I want to know why you are so serious – so determined to help him. Why do you believe in this? And unless, you're in love with your best friend…" He chuckled when her cheeks flushed and she looked away. "Well, maybe that's the only reason, and sadly, I don't make donations in the name of love."

"I don't love Nikolas," she argued hastily, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Not that it's any of your business, but he and I – well, I helped him after Emily – that was his fiancé – she was murdered. HeAnd he was ready to give up, to stop living, and we became friends – I helped him through that, but it doesn't mean I love him." She started to get flustered, her cheeks reddening by the second. "Do I care about him? Yes. Do I love him? Yes. Am I in love with him? Well, buddy, no worry there because that shipped has sailed. I already learned my lesson about falling for a guy who is in love with a dead woman, and I won't go there again."

"Finished?" he asked, when she stopped to catch her breath.

"Yes," she replied weakly, wringing her hands. "I just have this problem where I talk and talk, and I don't know how to shut up. It's especially difficult now because you make me nervous. Essentially you're holding the fate of the clinic in your hands. – iIf word gets out that you didn't want to donate, not even a small amount, people will ask questions, and the press will be bad – and it's just not good. None of this is good…"

"So, it's settled then," he said, after her voice trailed off.

"No," she rebuffed, glaring at him. "You cannot make something like this into a game because you're bored and I pissed you off."

"I can," he shrugged, motioning her towards the door. "Either you find a way to convince me to donate, or I don't at all."

**********

"Late again," Nikolas commented, looking up as Nadine slammed her purse down on the front desk, failing to wipe the defeated look off her face before he noticed. "Okay, what's the matter?"

"Tired," she shrugged, stepping behind the counter and grabbing the stack of charts that had been waiting on her arrival. "You know – no sleep, annoyances of life, loud noises, Ricky Ricardo is doing the howling thing again – and well, I'm just worried."

"About me," he sighed, shaking his head as leaned against the desk.

She nodded, wishing Nikolas would understand how much he meant to her and why she worried about him.

When they'd met, he'd been a patient at General Hospital, having gotten into a messy car accident not too long after Emily was murdered. He'd been drinking, not enough to break the law, but enough to make things hazy, and he confessed to Nadine in the ER that he just wanted to die.

Maybe she'd broken all kinds of rules by getting too close to her patient, but Nikolas meant something to a lot of people. Like her best friend, Elizabeth Morgan, who was Emily's best friend. The fellow nurse had been pretty distraught when Nikolas was brought into the ER after trying to trash himself, and somehow, Nadine felt like she had to do something. She was used to fighting for everyone else's life; it was part of her job growing up and partly why she became a nurse.

Along the way, she and Nikolas became friends, and she liked to think she helped him see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe she wasn't his reason to live, but she gave him a reason to, and this clinic was a large part of that.

Sure, for a while, she'd had a crush, but it was clear that Nikolas had feelings for Emily that were too intense for him to let go of anytime soon. Well, she'd thought she'd gotten over it, but after standing in Johnny's kitchen that morning, maybe part of her still pined for what couldn't be with Nikolas. She tried to chalk it up to a silly fantasy. The fluttering she felt when he smiled or touched her hand had long ago faded, and she was sure it was something about his royal stature that would always make her have a crush on him.

What girl didn't want to be a princess?

"The clinic," she admitted, looking at him from the corner of her eye. It wasn't a complete lie, especially now that she'd gotten into all kinds of trouble with Johnny Zacchara.

Aunt Raylene always said a mouth like that would get her into trouble. Surely, the woman was spinning in her grave and cackling in heaven.

"Don't worry," he said, laughing at her fears. "I've made some great connections. A lot of which are in Port Charles – Jax and Sonny are definite contributors. And I know that Elizabeth and Jason will make a hefty donation in Emily's honor."

"That's good," she replied, smiling nervously as he continued to ramble on.

"I've been working on meeting with some people from Manhattan, as well as a couple of investors on the West Coast. I'm pretty lucky that Johnny Zacchara ended up in Port Charles. His father left him a hell of a bank account when he passed away last spring."

So, not only was he a stupid, annoying neighbor, but he was a stupid, annoying neighbor spending Daddy's dime.

"I don't like that face," Nikolas teased, poking her in the arm. "I know that people talk about Johnny's father – say he embezzled and was involved in all kinds of horrible things, but so are Sonny and Jason. They've been on trial for their crimes and-"

"No, it's not that," she admitted, her tongue starting to wag in her mouth, the words slowly piling up on the tips.

Why couldn't she just fix this without involving Nikolas?

"I met John – Mr. Zacc – Johnny yesterday," she started apprehensively, her stomach churning. "He was here, waiting for you, and I – well, you know that new neighbor I've been complaining about? How I can't sleep and have a single moment of silence-"

"The reason I've been trying to convince you to stay at Wyndemere," he laughed, nodding his head.

"Don't laugh yet," she muttered, holding up her hands. "I haven't gotten to the funny part yet. You see I went in the break room, and I didn't see Johnny sitting there, and I was tired and upset. And I started ranting – you know how I rant-"

"Yes," he interjected curiously as he followed along.

"Well, I ended up complaining about my neighbor who likes classical music and has some whore that's harping at all hours of the night. Come to find out that not only is the neighbor, Johnny Zacchara, but the whore is his sister, and he's the new investor for your clinic – and yes, I managed to tell him all of this to his face." She pursed her lips and rocked back and forth on her heels. "This is where you laugh."

"You mean to tell me you insulted him? You knew that he was-"

"No, I didn't know. That's the funny part," she said, following it with a mock ha, ha that he clearly didn't find amusing.

"Nadine," he hissed, narrowing his eyes at her. "You know how important-"

"I know, Nikolas, and I'm so sorry. It's not like I insulted him on purpose."

"Precisely why you should bite your tongue," he muttered, grabbing a stack of papers from the desk and stalking away. "I'll be in my office."

_Shit. _

He didn't even give her time to explain that she was trying to fix it, trying very hard. So hard, in fact, that she'd gotten up with the sun this morning and crawled beneath a very dirty sink, while he looked her up and down, clearly enjoying her disheveled state.

_Jerk. _

Sighing, she picked up the phone and slipped the piece of paper he'd written his number down on from her pocket. She gritted her teeth when he sounded unusually chipper as he answered the phone.

She couldn't help but remember when she used to be unusually chipper.

"It's me," she said stiffly.

"I know."

"Something about the angry tone of my voice?"

"That and Caller ID."

"Oh, of course, I, I have you saved under Jerk Boy."

"I like it. It suits me, Hello Kitty."

She bit her tongue so hard that it was probably bleeding, but it was the only way to stop herself.

"Did you call for a reason? Or did you want me to play some classical music over the phone?"

"Yes and no," she spat, taking a deep breath. "I'm going to convince you."

"It won't be easy."

She smirked, having had experience with men like this in the past. Hell, she put up with Patrick Drake and Matt Hunter on a daily basis. "I'm up for the challenge."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"I thought we could start by showing you what exactly you'd be investing in," Nadine said, clasping her hands in front of her as she grinned at Johnny.

"I'd be investing in the clinic," he replied, shifting his eyes around the sparkling clean facility. "Medicine. Clean sheets. _Your_ paycheck."

Her jaw ticked at his words, but he saw her eyes fill with patience as she shoved a snarky reply to the side. "Exactly, but I thought if I showed you-"

"Do I look like I need visuals?" he asked, slipping his hands in the pockets of his jacket and rocking back and forth on his feet. He would have admired her snarky reply much better. "I'm well aware of how my money would be spent, but I won't lie, my lawyer thinks it's a complete waste seeing as this was built on some tarnished relationship-"

"Emily was the love of Nikolas' life, and her death was a tragedy," Nadine murmured uncomfortably, her eyes darkening, and he wondered who it was a bigger tragedy for.

"You like Nikolas?" he asked, leaning against the front desk and grinning at her. "And Emily's death sort of put a damper on things because he's in love-"

"We're talking about the clinic and the money that you're going to spend poorly," she cut in, walking around the desk to stand in front of him. "Your lawyer will just have to deal with the realization that you're doing something good with the money instead of letting him shove it into some offshore account. Or worse, his pocket."

Ah, yes, the snark.

He appreciated this side of the blonde nurse more than the one desperately seeking money because she was completely in love with her best friend.

"If you weren't doing this because you loved Nikolas, I think I'd like you," Johnny murmured, pushing himself away from the counter and motioning around the empty clinic, not giving her time to spit and sputter a reply. "So, dazzle me with your wit and words, Nadine. There better be a good reason why I got out of bed at eight a.m. on a Sunday morning."

"Late night?" she asked, flashing a chipper smile as pointed at the donuts and cartons of milk on the counter. "I at least brought you breakfast."

He wrinkled his nose as he picked up one of the tiny cartons of milk that reminded him of the cafeteria in his boarding school. Sometimes she just made it too easy to press her buttons. "I'm, uh, I'm lactose intolerant."

She started to argue, but then gave him a serious look as her cheeks flushed. "You are….lactose intolerant."

So much for the nurse putting up a fight.

"We can skip the food anyway," he shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "I'm not hungry…at least not for food anyway."

"You…" She gritted her teeth and held up her hands, taking several deep breaths, and he couldn't help but laugh. "I cannot stand you."

"You brought this upon yourself," he reminded her, rolling his eyes. "Now if you want to back out of your end of the bargain and just-"

"The Emily Bowen Quartermaine Clinic was established by Nikolas in hopes of helping the less fortunate people of Port Charles. His fiancé had just finished medical school and was following a line of doctors in her family. Medicine was always very important to them and-"

"Are you giving me a biography or are we talking about why I'm investing in the clinic?" he cut in, walking back to the desk and picking up a donut with chocolate sprinkles. She bit her cheeks and glared at the donut, and he immediately realized that it was _her_ donut, and that she'd brought him the boring, old glazed ones.

"Well, you may or may not know that General Hospital doesn't accept uninsured patients, which means they have to go all the way to county," she said slowly, trying to regroup. She grimaced when he bit into the donut and he couldn't stop himself from holding it out and offering her a bite. "Just eat it, and don't choke because I refuse-"

"Don't you take a vow as a nurse?" he interrupted, chewing slowly, and grinning when she closely watched how he licked chocolate from the corner of his mouth. "If I choked, you'd have to save me."

"Unfortunately," she muttered, rolling her eyes before launching back into her _help the poor because it's good speech_. "Not everyone can afford to make it to county, and in some situations you don't have the time, so patients can come to the clinic and-"

"I'm bored," Johnny sighed, tossing the half eaten donut down on the counter and looking at her. He dusted his crumb ridden fingers against his worn jeans. "If you thought telling me – basically giving me a history of medicine in Port Charles was going to-"

"You're not even listening to me," she hissed, pursing her lips. "I just thought you'd want to know where you were spending your money. My Aunt Rayleen always said you never gave money away unless-"

"Rich people don't care where they put their money as long as it makes them look good," he shrugged, folding his arms over her chest. "And you can give this feed the children speech until your blue in the face, but it's not going to-"

"This is just a game to you, isn't it?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm trying to convince you to donate money to something that will change people's lives, and you're too selfish, too bored, too conceited to do something for the sake of it being good."

"I like doing things for the sake of my own good," he corrected smugly, grinning crookedly. "And honestly, I don't see how giving millions of dollars to Nikolas Cassidine is going to help me."

"You are such a selfish ass-" She stopped mid-sentence, her lips curving into a wide smile as the door to the clinic opened. "Nikolas, I, uh, I…" She raked a shaky hand through her hair and dropped her eyes to the floor.

"Your _delightful_ nurse here was giving me a tour of the clinic," Johnny chimed in, nodding politely at Nikolas who seemed surprised to see them standing there. He looked awkward, nervous even and Johnny knew that the upstanding woman had ran straight to Nikolas and confessed her sins. Was there nothing she did with dirty hands? "I like to know where my money's being spent when I'm doing something for the sake of all the _good_ in the world."

"You sure do," Nadine growled lightly, her jaw tense as she glared at him.

"I see," he murmured, looking between his nurse and possible benefactor. "Well, I'll leave you two to it. I left some paperwork in my office." He gave Nadine a lingering look. "I'm relieved that you're doing as I asked."

"Always," she replied, her eyes softening at the man's kinds words.

Ha.

She so wanted to bang her boss.

"Stop grinning like that, you-"

"I'd watch the name calling if I was you," he interrupted, watching Nikolas disappear down the hall to his office. "Looks like you're boss is counting on you making things right with me, and better yet, I bet it's driving you completely insane that I can't stand you."

"As opposed to you liking me?" she asked, arching her eyebrows.

"You like being liked, and you're willing to sell yourself short to make sure-"

"You don't even know me," she warned, tensing up.

"And you don't know me," he reminded her, starting towards the door. "So the next time you decide to call me names and make assumptions about me and my money, you should think twice." He jerked the door open and started outside, calling out to her over his shoulder. "I'll be in touch, Hello Kitty."

He lingered next to the door long enough to hear the long string of dirty words that escaped her mouth, and then he laughed all the way to his car.

**********

"Well, I've really done it this time, Ricky," Nadine sighed, combing her fingers through her cat's thick fur as he purred loudly, his body draped across her middle as she sprawled on the couch. "It frustrates me that so few people actually believe in Nikolas and his cause. I can tell he doesn't want all these donations from people who pity him and the loss of Emily, but that's what it looks like he's getting. And it's my fault because if I hadn't opened my big, fat, _stupid_ mouth to Johnny Zacchara, Nikolas would have a hefty donation that wasn't out of pity. I fail at life."

The cat yawned lazily and let out a soft meow.

"You're not supposed to agree," she pouted, sticking out her tongue at him. "Okay, okay, I'll be nice." She gently eased the cat off her lap and onto the cushion next to her when he not-so-subtly sank his claws into her Muppet pajama bottoms. "Kermit doesn't like when you do that to his face."

The cat meowed again before jumping off the couch and scampering away.

She'd become a complete and total pain to everyone around her, including her cat. Not even Ricky Ricardo wanted her company these days. He didn't come to greet at the door when she came home or saunter back and forth between her legs when she cooked dinner. Like everyone else, he was tired of Nadine being sleepless and rude, and she knew she had to stop this.

"Alright, Ricky, I'll be nicer," she said, getting up and sliding on fuzzy pink slippers. The cat peered around the end of the couch, his eyes slits as he meowed. "I promise. I'll buy you tuna and those fancy cat toys you like, and I won't complain when you wake me up in the morning to play."

The cat let out a low purr and rolled onto his back, and she was pleased that they seemed to reach some kind of understanding. "Nice doing business with you," she murmured, leaning over and running her fingers along his belly. "I can be nice. I'm just – ow, Ricky!" She jerked her hand away when he bit her, jumping to his feet, his tail sticking straight up as he ran from the room the moment music jarred through the walls, shaking what few pictures she had hanging on them.

"I. Will. Kill. Him," she hissed, sinking back down on the couch and holding her face in her hands. She closed her eyes and started to count to ten, briefly debating whether or not to try some of those relaxing yoga techniques Spinelli was always on her to use these days. "Don't you start, Ricky."

She scowled when the cat slinked back into the room, his fur fluffed in protest of the wailing sounds that were seeping through the walls, and then he started howling.

"Ricky, do you want that tuna I just promised you?" she asked, wagging her finger at him. "Do you want me to be nice and pleasant and…" She gave up when he continued to howl, rolling around on the floor as if he were in pain. "Don't make me go over there, Ricky. Actually, I _refuse_ to go over there."

She grabbed some three month fashion magazine from the coffee table and leaned back on the couch, flipping through the pages. "Johnny's just acting out over this morning. When he realizes he's ruined my day enough, he'll turn the music off and go bang some whore or something." She continued to turn the pages, trying to ignore the sound of the cat's howling over the music. "Ricky, stop. I am not going over there."

Swearing under her breath, she slammed the magazine down on the coffee table and got up. "Fine, but when you don't have your favorite tuna and your cat toys because I'm cranky and miserable, you remember this moment."

She snatched a sweater from a chair near the door and shrugged it over her tank top before tearing the door open and starting next door. Taking a deep breath, she knocked gently at first, straining to hear if Johnny was even in there, and that's when she heard the voices.

"Stop being such an immature-"

"Get the hell out!"

"This whole angry teenager thing was okay-"

"Go to hell, Claudia!"

"You're going to make a mistake, and I am not-"

"I've never needed you to clean up anything-"

"John, this is everything to our family and you're-"

"Not a part of that family!"

"Sheesh," Nadine murmured, torn between going back home and making him answer the door. The latter won out, only because she could hear Ricky howling in the hallway, so she beat harder and harder, until finally the door swung open.

"What the hell do you want?" Johnny snarled angrily, his chest heaving. His eyes wandered over her, and she could have sworn she saw the faintest hint of smile when they settled on her pajama bottoms, but by the time they were back on his face, he was pissed all over again.

"Oh, I didn't know you had company coming," purred a low voice as a dark-haired women stepped up behind him. "Well, isn't this cute? Why wasn't I invited to the pajama party?"

"What. Do. You. Want?" Johnny spat, tensing up when the woman poked him in the shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had company. I-"

"The music? Is Beethoven ruining your perfect day?" he hissed, turning around and stalking over to the stereo. He opened the glass door and leaned over and hit the off button. "Better?"

"Yes," she whispered, folding her arms over her chest as she backed towards her apartment. "Thank you."

He slammed the door without so much as a word, his voice raising long enough to tell the woman to either shut up or leave, and things remained silent for the rest of the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"I'm surprised you bothered to show up for breakfast," Claudia sneered, raising her eyes from the Metro Court Hotel rrestaurant menu to glare at her little brother.

"You called," he huffed, jerking his chair out and sitting down across from her, too pissed off to care if heads turned and his poor sister was embarrassed. He fucking hated this hotel and any other kind like it, and the only reason he lived there with her for as long as he did was because she begged him, pleaded with him not to leave her alone like everyone else.

Sadly, he thought Claudia had some real motivation behind her desire to keep her brother near, but she'd proven to be like everyone else. So desperate to keep Johnny Zacchara under wraps that she'd sell herself short in the process. He tried to be patient, told himself she was protecting him when really she was smothering him, and finally he packed his bags and found his own place.

"We need to discuss this situation you've gotten yourself into," she said, smiling sweetly at the waiter as he sat down two mimosas. "Keep these coming, pal." She paused and looked over at Johnny. "M Though my little brother here might need something stiffer."

"I don't want anything," he hissed, not bothering to look up at the waiter.

"My, my, you really are bent out of shape over this girl," she clucked, folding her menu closed and holding it out to the waiter. She took a sip of her drink and reached out to grab the waiter before he hurried off. "See if you can get this made just a tad bit stronger too, will ya?" He nodded, and she winked at him as she let go of his arm and settled back in the chair. "Now back to business."

"I'm not discussing Nadine with you," he muttered stiffly, clasping his hands in his lap.

Unfortunately, once his sister became privy to the fact that he had a rather attractive, blonde neighbor who beat on his door, she became nosey. Ty, and that led to her learning that Nadine worked for Nikolas, which caused her to believe the nurse was why Johnny wanted to donate his entire trust fund and father's earnings to Nikolas' clinic.

"Fine, then let's discuss how you're going to blow your entire savings, _our_ entire family's namesakes so you can sleep with some annoying, little twit-"

"She doesn't like the loud music," he cut in, shaking his head.

"You're defending her now, John?" she asked, finishing off mimosa number one in one,ne long gulp, and moving onto number two.

"You don't know her," he muttered, biting his jaws to keep from saying what he really wanted to.

Claudia didn't need to be reminded that his father was a cruel, manipulative business man who made his life earnings by cheating and conniving people out of their money. He ran a dirty, scheming company, and when he died, he left it to Johnny because he believed his beloved son was willing to step up and be as foul and cruel as Anthony was.

If he knew his son in the slightest, he would have realized Johnny was never going to live in that shadow.

"Neither do you," she argued, grinning at the waiter as he set two more mimosas on the table, and grabbed her empty glass. There was clearly just a hint of orange juice in both of them. "You always do this. I swear, when we first moved to Port Charles and you started seeing that one stupid twit-"

"Okay, Lulu was a mistake," he agreed, finally looking at her, "but Nadine isn't like that."

Claudia arched her eyebrows as swayed her half empty champagne flute from side to side. "So you admit you like her?"

"I like her cause," he replied, sighing heavily.

Did she really have to bring up Lulu?

"Oh, right, if I had a number for every man who liked _my_ cause," she snickered, finishing off glass number two and moving onto three.

"You'd what?" he challenged, leaning forward and glaring at her. She just smirked. "I didn't want to run the damn company, and neither did you. And I sure as hell don't want money that came with blood on his hands, so I'm going to do something good with it."

"Good?" she mocked, her face falling. "Oh, John, this girl has you hook, line, and sinker. How did she do it? Because I have got to learn."

"Claudia," he warned, clenching his jaw.

"Did she bat those baby blues? Or did she offer _other_ things?" she laughed, tossing her dark, black hair over her should. "This could be beneficial to me."

"Do you enjoy pissing me off?" he growled, narrowing his eyes at her. "I don't see how any of this is your concern. You got your trust fund from our father. You have plenty of money to buy your designer clothes and fucking stilettos, so why do you care?"

"Because despite what you think, John, I care about Daddy," she answered angrily, slamming her glass down and sloshing champagne onto the fancy tablecloth.

"I asked you if you wanted the company, and you said no," he reminded her, pounding his fist against the table. She cringed as heads turned from all around them, and he knew he was really causing heads to turn. "Trevor ran the company along side our father and he's better suited for the type of business he ran anyway."

"So you're going to take all the money you got in the deal with Trevor and just give it away?" she asked in disbelief. "Explain to me how I'm supposed to understand that."

"It's my money, so you don't have to," he retorted, taking a deep breath as he looked around at the prying eyes in the restaurant.

"You're going to make a mistake. You'll regret giving the money away when you're left with nothing."

"Money doesn't give you everything, Claudia," he said, knowing it wouldn't sink into her superficial way of thinking.

"It's not just that," she defended, shaking her head. "Daddy may have been a bastard, but he gave us the Zacchara name, and that's about the only damn thing he left us with. He built a business empire that you signed over to his lawyers before they lowered his coffin in the ground, and now-"

He scooted his chair back and got up, lowering his voice as he leaned over to say one last thing. "And you may think that our father left us with something because of our name, but all he did really left us with the pile of bloodshed and bankrupt men he left behind. He didn't die with their blood on his hands. He left it for us, and I refuse to be any part of it, but _you_ can do whatever the hell you want."

"John," she whispered, tipping her head back and looking up at him with tear-filled eyes.

"Don't even," he growled, turning away and refusing to feel sorry for her.

**********

"Yeah, this is Nadine Crowell," she murmured, pacing back and forth on the rooftop of the hospital, one arm draped across her middle. "Yes, I know that Jolene's medical bills are overdue, but I can't afford to send the entire payment right now."

She hung her head when the bill collector rambled on about how she signed the agreement stating that Nadine would accept full responsibility and have her payment ready on the first Tuesday of everything month.

"Well, the most I can do is give you a check number, and you can process it this Friday," she begged, pacing nervously, her heart tightening in her chest.

Her sister needed to stay in this facility and if she screwed this up, Aunt Raylene's soul would never forgive her. She'd turn in her grave and come after her beloved niece, desperate to remind her what family was all about.

"Yes, for the full amount," she cringed, silently adding up dollars in her head.

Maybe trading in the tiny furnished apartment for the fancy one with actual heat and electricity that didn't work onlyonly worked when it wanted to hadn't been such a good idea, or maybe she'd have to suck it up and get more hours at the clinic or General Hospital.

Of course, then she'd have to explain to Nikolas why she was working even more than usual, and he was already questioning the hours she did have. She felt guilty when she thought about how Nikolas knew nothing about her sister, Jolene, and how she was locked away in a mental facility after having a nervous breakdown when he was so willing to share things with her. This wasn't the type of thing you shared with a Greek prince that you sometimes thought you were madly in love with, but soon got over that any thoughts of love with because he wanted his dead fiancé back.

And to think, she thought life in Ohio was complicated.

Besides, if she told Nikolas the truth, he would offer to pay for Jolene's medical care, and it seemed wrong to have someone taking care of her sister who didn't know her and never would. She'd all but been sitting in the facility for years like a piece of fruit, molding away to nothing, not even registering her own sister's presence when she actually made it into the city to visit.

She could have committed her to Shadybrook when she moved to upstate New York, but as terrible as it sounded, she wanted to keep her life as separate from Jolene's as possible. She'd be living in her sister's shadow for years, fighting to show that the Crowell name was good, and didn't mean she was a nurse, ready to off patients at a moment's notice.

Finding Port Charles had been an accident as she ran her finger down a list of small towns in New York after finding what was deemed the best care facility on the East Coast in Manhattan, and five minutes in the town, and she fell in love with it. Sure, it had its flaws, like the occasional mob war or explosion on the docks, but at least things were never boring.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," she sighed, leaning against the ledge of the building and staring down at the ground, watching the cars whiz in and out of traffic. Some people in this town were just too damn impatient to stop at red lights, which was precisely why the ER was always filled with accidents. "Take the payment out on Friday, late fee include."

Too bad she hadn't counted on just how expensive the facility would be.

Nikolas was well overpaying her for her time spent at the clinic, but that money went fast with the new apartment and catching up on her other bills. Her paychecks at General Hospital hadn't come near to covering Jolene's bills, but they were willing to work with her income, which was fantastic as seeing now she made _too_ much.

Why couldn't life just ever give a girl a break?

"Thank you," she murmured, snapping her phone closed and shoving it into her the pocket of her scrubs. "Blasted woman…I bet if her sister was locked up, she'd want someone to be patient with her…stupid, stupid, Jolene, why did you have to go crazy on me?" She braced her hands against the ledge and leaned over, taking a deep breath. "I know it wasn't your fault, but when you kill someone you have to think of those around you. It's just logical."

Closing her eyes, she sucked in a breath, refusing to cry as she often did when she thought about her sister. It was difficult to think about their happy childhood spend in Ohio riding horses and staying up late and sharing secrets.

How did they get herehad they gotten here?

"I'm sorry, Jolene. It's not your fault. I mean, it is, but it's not, and gosh, Aunt Raylene, if you're listening and could give me some strength here, I need-"

"Talking to yourself now, huh?"

"Fuck," she groaned, lifting her head and looking over to see Johnny strolling – _oh yeah, he was definitely strolling _– onto the roof. She wouldn't be surprised if he started whistling any second. "Are you stalking me now, Jerk Boy?"

He grunted, slipping his hands into his pockets, and rocked back and forth on his feet. "How self-centered." She arched an eyebrow, challenging him. "Actually, my father was a member of the hospital board a while ago. Usually our lawyer's son filled in, but when he died, it was one thing I was interested in."

"You hate sick people," she hissed, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

"I have not once gavegiven that impression," he scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Uh, tThis whole debacle you've started about the clinic," she reminded him, leaning over so that their faces were inches apart. "You don't want to help sick people, but you'll support a hospital that turns them away?"

"You work here, hypocrite," he retorted, stepping up to the ledge and peering over. He stepped back, hesitating briefly before jumping onto the edge.

"What the hell are you doing?" she cried, her eyes widening in horror as he balanced himself on one leg and slowly hopped along the ledge. "Stop it, Johnny! Get down!"

"It's fun," he shrugged, turning around on one foot to face her. He leaned backwards and flashed her a pearly grin that would have normally pissed her off because it was adorably cute, but this was different.

She was just pissed off.

"Get down!" she screamed, clenching her hands in fists at his side. Her throat went dry as he continued to pace, and she wasn't why it was so infuriating. Maybe it was her own personal furies or that she missed Jolene, and here this fucker was just literally dangling his life over the edge of a fifteen story building. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

He stopped and tipped his head in her direction, her tone having caught him off guard. "I do it all the time," he said, jumping down and walking over to her, his eyes softening. "Look, I didn't mean to upset you. I was just screwing around."

"Yeah, that seems to be all you ever do," she spat, backing away from him.

"Whoa, Nadine, is something wrong?" he asked, following after her as she started for the door. "I'm sorry if I upset you. I just had a bad day, and this calms me down."

"Calms you down?" she cried, spinning around on her heels to face him. "I'd say try going for a drive, but you'd go to fast, so maybe you should try walking really slow, or breaking a couple of glasses, or writing a mean letter, but you sure as hell don't jump on building ledges!"

He nodded, stepping slowly away and holding up his hands. "Uh, point taken," he huffed sarcastically.

"God, you're so dumb," she scowled, turning around and jerking the door open.

She stalked inside and left him gaping behind her, not sure if she was more embarrassed that she'd flipped out on him or that she actually cared whether he fell off the roof.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Johnny was not good at apologizing.

Well, technically, he never actually apologized for anything.

There was one time whenre he scuffed up his sister's favorite pair of heels with a matchbox car, but that was only because she held him down, shoved dirt in his mouth, and threatened his life. That was life or death, which certainly wasn't the circumstance with Nadine Crowell. Yet for some reason he couldn't stop thinking about how pissed off she was all because he climbed onto the ledge of a ten story building.

_Women. _

This was why if it wasn't a bedroom tryst, he wasn't interested in them. They were emotional over the dumbest shit, and they had the nerve to call him stupid when they were the one acting like a basket case.

He couldn't count the number of times he'd stood on that fucking ledge. His father always dragged him to board meetings, or as Anthony called it, his future, and Johnny spent most of his time chasing scrubs and contemplating suicide, which wasn't necessarily so bad depending on how you looked at it.

Regardless, he stood on thate ledge at least once every couple weeks, and the rooftop was never occupied. He would have thought more people in the hospital would use it for solace, desperate to get away from the hell hole, or even to rendezvous and do dirty things amongst the city lights.

It wasn't the place for emotional, annoying nurses who thought they knew everything about the damned world, and it certainly wasn't the place for those nurses to call him dumb.

It was _his_ place, and now she'd fucking ruined it. Every time he was up there, he'd think about her frown, and her stupid tears, and the way she'd screamed at him, and he wouldn't feel right about standing on the ledge anymore.

All of this was so damned disturbing that he'd wound up here -it let him to standing on her Hello Kitty doormat at two o'clock in the morning, knocking gently, only because if he knocked hard, she'd answer all pissed off.

"What?" Nadine spit, tearing the door open as she tugged her ratty, flannel robe closed. Kermit the Frog peeked out the top, and he wasn't surprised when he glanced at her pants and found matching bottoms as well as Hello Kitty slippers.

How in the hell was he supposed to talk to her when she was wearing Muppet pajamas and Hello Kitty was leering up at himer?

"You always answer the door like that?" he asked, frowning at the slippers before lifting his eyes to her face.

Shouldn't people who generally wearore Hello Kitty apparel generally be…happy?

"It's the middle of the night," she replied dumbly, her fingers wrapped tightly around the door handle.

She was entirely too tense for someone who spent the day playing with babies, poor sick people, and watching cartoons and I Love Lucy reruns.

"So," he grunted, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "You were up."

"How would you know-"

"I heard you cackling through your walls and saying vitameatavegamin," he interrupted smugly.

"Oh, you mean you heard the show because I had to turn it up as loud as my damn television would go because of your're stupid-"

"Bach is not stupid," he cut in, rolling his eyes yet again.

"Oh, and Lucille Ball is?" she challenged, letting go of the door as she clenched her fist.

He'd have to remember to get this girl a stress ball.

"Classical music is cla-"

"Classy," she hissed, arching her eyebrows. "Wow, aren't you creative?"

Taking a deep breath, he bit his cheeks, and reminded himself that this was not why he was here. He was here to…fuck, he didn't even know. He just couldn't get that damn image of her crying on the rooftop of the fucking hospital out of his mind, and it was starting to drive him crazy.

"You've pissed me off. In the middle of the night. On my only night off, so thank you," she spat sarcastically, starting to close the door, only to bebut stopped when hishis arm shot out and pushed it open. "What? Did you actually have a purpose besides coming over here and saying that my TV was too loud?"

"I never said that," he corrected sternly, adding yet another reason why women were so damn annoying. They could twist anything around to make themselves look like the victim, and he wasn't going to be a culprit of their cruel endeavors. "I said I heard you cackling, so I knew you were awake."

"Which implies-"

"Nothing," he interrupted flatly. "I didn't say I didn't like your cackling, only that it allowed me to believe you were awake…"

"So you came here because…" She waved her hand in front of her, growing impatient, while he tried to come up with, but he really didn't have a reason.

He wasn't the type of man to knock on a woman's door in the middle of the night. Usually they knocked on his, and sometimes they were paid for it – only the classy ones, of course, but she didn't definitely didn't need to know that.

"Milk," he grunted, thinking of the first possible thing that came to mind.

He lived in an apartment building on the wealthy side of town, and it was full of people who were probably his friends and could borrow such things at all hours of the night.

"Milk?" she asked, fussing with her robe as if her Kermit the Frog tank top was exposing too much. "For what?"

"Cereal," he replied dumbly, because what else would a grown man need milk for in the middle of the night.

"You didn't even bring a cup," she huffed, backing into her apartment and leaving the door open, which he took as a silent invitation to come inside.

"I forgot," he said, grinning to himself as he looked around at her apartment, not surprised that the living room was filled with oversized furniture, comfy chairs and couches, fuzzy blankets, and a soft throw rug. The room was surprisingly warm, comforting even, and it was a stark change from his poorly decorated and scarcely furnishedfilled apartment.

He narrowed his eyes at her DVD collection, but realized it was too dark to see if she actually owned something good aside from I Love Lucy and, no doubt, she had the best of the Muppets as well.

"Wait a second," she called out from the kitchen, asand he looked over to see her head peering out from the doorway. "You're lactose intolerant."

"Huh?" he asked, furrowing his brow, and then laughinged as he remembered. "About that…"

"If I didn't have to like you for work, I'd hate you so much," she huffed, disappearing into the kitchen.

He cringed when he heard some cabinets opening and closing, and couldn't decide whether he should ask her if she had some cereal too. He figured he was skating on thin ice enough ice as it was.

"It was a joke," he apologized, moseying over to the doorway, not sure if he should prepare to duck and cover.

She was definitely the kind of woman to throw things at his head.

"I'm trying hard to be nice to you," she muttered, filling a slender container with milk and snapping on a lid. "You're making it impossible."

"You're boring me," he shrugged, taking the milk and glancing around the kitchen.

Yes! Cheerios on top of the refrigerator. She was a nurse, so she probably had bananas too – good for the muscles and all that. He ignored her as she started to rant about how Nikolas was doing something good and Johnny had the power to make it happen, until, yes – bananas on the counter.

"I think we should talk more about this," he interrupted, silently praying that she would get into another 'do a good deed for the world' speech.

"I've been trying to talk to you," she said, fussing with her robe again.

Really, what was she trying to hide that Kermit couldn't?

"Okay, let's talk," he replied, setting his milk down on the counter and tossing his head towards the fridge as he pointed at the bananas. "Over breakfast."

"You're kidding me," she muttered, her jaw tightening.

Shrugging, he walked past her and snatched a banana from the counter. "I'm out of cereal too," he sighed, leaning against the counter as he slowly peeled the banana. "And I also shoved all my spoons down the garbage disposal."

She held her hand over her eyes, roughly smoothing her thumb across her temple, and he was pretty sure he had pushed her too far. "Fine," she said slowly, jerking out a chair. "Sit down."

**********

Aunt Rayleen always said that you could tell a lot about someone from the way they treated their food. The type of man who devoured his food, spitting crumbs from his mouth and making a mess all over the table, was not the type of man a woman brought home. He should care for his food as delicately as heit would his most prized possession, and, usually, when she got to that point of her rant, Nadine tuned out. She loved her aAunt, but sometimes she thought the woman was a little too wise -, until now.

Sitting across from Johnny at her tiny two-seat breakfast table, she couldn't help but watch in wonder. There was always something so fascinating about an attractive man's mouth, and despite his horrid personality, Johnny Zacchara was no different. He ate quietly, never scraping hiser spoon against the bowl or slurping the milk, and he chewed even quieter -, so quiet, in fact, thatand she was beginning to wonder if he wasn't just swallowing the Cheerios whole.

"My mother always made me eat bananas in my Cheerios," he said, grinning crookedly as he set his spoon down in the bowl, and wiped his fingers on the paper towel she'd thrown at him before setting his food in front of him.

Seriously, he even wiped his fingers perfectly.

"Fruit's one of the easiest ways to get a kid to eat healthily," she replied, scowling when he rolled his eyes at her. "What?"

"You," he grunted disgustedly, and had she not wanted him to elaborate, she would have told him to get the hell out of her apartment. "Is it always about work with you?"

"I was just commenting on-"

"You sounded like a nurse," he interrupted, stretching across the table and plucking a piece of banana from her untouched bowl.

Something about sitting down and eating in front of him had become a complete turn off – probably because he kept smirking at her as if he'd gotten her to do something she didn't want to do.

And maybe he had, but it was for work.

So ha.

Ha in his stupid face.

"I am a nurse," she replied, frowning when he snatched another piece of banana from her bowl.

"Yeah, but you're not always a nurse," he stressed, carefully sliding the slice of fruit between his lips so slowly that she almost lost all train of thought. "There are other aspects to your life."

"Like the clinic," she said, hoping they could talk about something other than themselves. Or her. Because, really, all this – the Cheerios with perfectly sliced bananas served in a fancy bowl with her organic milk – was about the clinic.

"Still a nurse," he sighed, rolling his eyes as he took a sip of his freshly squeezed orange juice.

Oh, yes, once she had made the cereal, he had the nerve to ask if she had any OJ, and when she said she liked hers freshly squeezed, he said he didn't mind waiting.

God, Nikolas better give her a raise.

Or at least grovel at her feet and tell her how incredibly awesome she iwas.

Except that he was still in love with a dead woman and would do no such thing.

Men were idiots.

"I thought you wanted to talk about the clinic," she huffed, poking her spoon around her soggy cereal, trying to patient.

"Not really," he shrugged, neatly wiping his mouth as he set his empty glass down on the placemat. "I just wanted cereal."

"Well, you've eaten, so…" She waved her hand towards the door, growing exhausteding of his teenage boy ways.

She was starting to think that the only way to get him to focus would be if she promised to strip her clothes off afterwards, but then he'd be thinking about sex, and, well, they wouldn't get very far.

"I don't have to go," he said, tapping his fingers against his placemat, a sly grin spreading across his face.

"You want to stay and hang out?" she asked, shaking her head when he nodded because she wasn't really offering -; only he didn't seem to care.

She started to tell him to leave, but stopped, wondering how desperate and lonely he was if he had showned up on her doorstep at two in the morning. Or maybe he'd just been was just hungry, but then why wouldn't he have food? Or order takeout from that all night Chinese place? Unless he hated Chinese, but…there just had to be something open that he liked.

Unless…

He was just lonely, and for some reason, that made her very, very sad.

She'd always been the type of person to thrive on human interaction – probably because her Aunt Rayleen had always said you learned more about yourself from the people around you than you did by being alone. So far, her aunt had been correct, and Nadine was more fulfilled from her career as a nurse than she had been with anything else. She learned to be selfless, understanding, and overly caring, and while sometimes those were her worst qualities, they were often her saving grace. People depended on her, needed her in their lives, and she loved being someone they could count on.

From what little of Johnny she had seen and gotten to know, he seemed to be the type of man who was used to living alone. Sure, he had women over from time to time, but mostly he sat in his apartment blaring classical music that made Nadine want to scratch her eyes out. She vaguely remembered the press about his father's death; how Anthony had been crazy and left the business to his only son, and she was starting to wonder if Port Charles was his way of escaping.

"So…" She dropped her spoon and it clanged loudly against the bowl, causing Johnny to jerk in surprise. "I'll leave if you want-"

"No," she cut in, shaking her head. "You can stay. I'm just a little curious as to why you came by in the first place."

"Ah," he sighed, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. "Well, I don't like being called dumb."

"People who climb onto the ledge of tall buildings are dumb and crazy," she replied, looking away from him. Granted, that hadn't been her finest moment, and calling people names wasn't very nice, but she wasn't going to apologize.

"I am not dumb or crazy," he said seriously, narrowing his eyes at her. Clearly, she'd offended him, probably with the crazy talk. It was always upsetting when someone talked about her sister or the mental patients at the hospital when really they had no idea at all, and she would have apologized had he not continued to be such a condescending jerk. "You've never climbed up there."

"And I never will," she muttered, her stomach churning at the thought.

Why would she?

To prove a point to some ridiculous asshole who wouldn't get out of her face?.

So not happening.

"Why?" he asked smugly, leaning forward to challenge her. "Because you're scared? Or too busy being involved in everyone else's lives?"

"I'm not scared," she answered quietly, not sure how she felt about the second question, but knowingew if she mentioned that being a nurse was her job, he'd roll his eyes and she'd have to stab him in the eye with her spoon. "Being up there – what's it like?"

"It's hard to explain." His eyes softened as he leaned back again. "I guess it's like being on top of the world."

"And you aren't already?" His brow furrowed and she shrugged, doing her best not to trip over her words. "You have what most people want – a great company that will make for a lasting career, more than enough money. You're good looking, so finding someone should be easy." She hesitated when he smirked proudly and she almost wished she hadn't said it. "I'm sure you have good friends, probably some family somewhere and-"

"Not really," he interrupted, clearing his throat as he got up from the table. "People always want what everyone else has, but most of the time, it's not even worth wanting."

He slipped his jacket off the back of the chair and shrugged it over his shoulders, looking down when Ricky Ricardo slinked into the room and roamed beneath his feet. "May I…?" He trailed off as he picked up his bowl of leftover cereal milk, and Nadine couldn't remember the last time as she saw anything as sweet as a grown man kneeling down and feeding her cat. "Yeah, I bet living with her is a pain."

"Hey," she scowled, pushing her chair back and getting up from the table. "Ricky loves me, don't you, baby?" She started to walk over, but the cat curled against the side of Johnny's leg, choosing to side with the only other male species in the room. "I could have left you at the pound."

Johnny chuckled as he tipped his head towards her, a wide, toothy grin – that was far sexier than it should have been – on his face. "Nah, you couldn't have," he muttered, patting the cat on the head before straightening up and starting towards the doorway. "Something tells me…you've got a thing for strays."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"You really need to learn to relax," Leyla sighed, shoving a pitcher of beer across the table to Nadine, who scowled as she poured her glass.

"I don't really have time to relax," she replied, sad that the best part of her day so far had been that she just poured a glass of beer with little foam. "Epiphany wants me to up my hours at the hospital, while and Nikolas wants me more available for planning this benefit, while and still keeping up my hours at the clinic. Not to mention that I've gotten entangled in the most awkward of circumstances with one of the possible contributors – a very wealthy contributor at that."

"Probably not as entangled as you could be," Kelly murmured, winking as tossed back a shot of tequila.

Johnny straightened at the bar, the corner of his mouth hitching as he nursed his whiskey, secretly anxious to hear Nadine's response. Their relationship had become _very_ cordial; smiles exchanged at the clinic, teasing gestures over breakfast at the main desk, and sometimes she _really_ laughed when he brought up her their deal.

Of course, she was probably just trying to ensure that he made his donation to the clinic, and it was sort of fun to keep her worrying, especially when he'd had the check written out for Nikolas prior to ever meeting the man.

She didn't need to know that – not yet anyway.

"Oh, I have no desire to be entangled with Johnny in any way," the nurse scowled, reaching across the table to snatch a shot as if the topic required such. "He is the most annoying man I have ever met in my entire life."

"If he's getting under your skin that much, he'll probably get under…or inside other things just as well," Kelly shrugged, causing Johnny to grin – at least someone on his side.

"Seriously, stop it right now," Nadine scolded, motioning for someone to hand her another shot. "I cannot stand that stupid, stupid man. It's bad enough that I have to be nice to him because he's my neighbor, and he could probably turn me in for having a cat when I'm not supposed to or something stupid like that, which I wouldn't put past him. However, Ricky Ricardo did take to him in the most unnerving of ways-"

"Wow, he's already made friends with the cat," Leyla teased, happily obliging the blonde's request for more tequila. "Seems you two are having more than just a business relationship, Nadine."

"I already explained that," she groaned, sloshing some of the tequila onto her hand. Johnny happened to glance over his shoulder just in time to see her licking the liquor from the back of his hand, and he almost would have enjoyed it had she stopped talking about him for just ten seconds. "I have to be nice to him. I don't want to be, so if he shows up on my doorstep needing milk, I have to give it to him."

So much for the kindness of neighbors.

"You don't have to do anything," Lainey chimed in, setting several more rounds of tequila onto the table before taking her seat. "I've told you this before, Nadine. You don't have to please everyone. Not everyone has to like you-"

"No, this is different," she stressed, waving her hand at her. "He has a lot of money – money that Nikolas needs, and if I'm not nice to him-"

"Let's be honest here, you are just a lowly employee," Kelly interrupted, forcing a smile at her friend, and sliding a shot across the table as if to make up for her comment. "You work for Nikolas as a nurse. Your job doesn't entail public relations. He should have people for that. Someone as wealthy as Johnny Zacchara isn't going to make his decision based on whether or not he likes you."

"No, but he's making his decision on whether or not I can convince him to donate," she explained exhaustedly, her speech beginning to slur. "He wants some life-changing reason behind giving money to a free clinic when he should just want to donate because he's a nice guy – because it's the nice thing to do." Sitting back, she sighed and sucked down the shot, slamming and then slammed the glass against the table. "Except that Johnny Zacchara isn't a nice guy."

Clearing his throat, he rocked back on his stool, wondering how the nurse hadn't noticed him sitting in the corner of the bar. She huffed under her breath and took a sip of her beer, completely oblivious despite his attempts to cough or kick his stool, anything to get her attention.

"He's – he's the most stuck up and spoiled asshole I have ever met," she hissed, causing him to hang his head and lift his hand for the bartender. He was definitely going to need more whiskey if he was going to survive this. "He acts so proud of the fact that he has all this power that comes with money, not realizing that it just makes him as foul and evil as his father. You've read the headlines about Anthony Zaccharra. And I honestly thought that maybe he Johnny cared to do something good, but he's so hell bent on making everyone miserable – making them fall at his feet."

He slapped two hundreds on the bar, motioned for Coleman to leave the bottle sitting close, and tossed down an extra hundred when the bartender obliged.

"I bet he's spent his entire life with a bunch of ass-sucking idiots telling him how great he is, how smart, how Johnny Zacchara is going to change the world," she continued, laying out one stifling blow after another. "And the worst part – the most infuriating thing about it – he's a nice guy when he's not being a complete asshole, but he's so busy being an asshole that he can't be nice."

"God," she muttered, pausing to sip her beer. "I just hate him. And his stupid classical music. And that screeching whore. And how my cat likes him more than me – my god, I should have just left Ricky Ricardo at the damn pound if I knew he was going to be an ass-sucker."

"Wow," Kelly laughed, shaking her head at her friend. "This is the most you've ever had to say."

"Normally, I don't have things to say, but I'm – I'm pissed off," Nadine replied, smacking the table with her hand. "And drunk. You all got me drunk so I would tell you things."

"I just said that you should probably do him," Kelly defended, shrugging it off as she reached for a shot. "And apparently doing him – well, once you get past how much you hate him-"

"I hate him so hard that I will never be able to do him – even – even if I wanted to," she cut in, pointing across the table at her. Johnny briefly wondered if she even realized her statement made no sense at all, but that probably wasn't really the point. "Ever. I do not have sex with spoiled rich kids who are hopped up on their daddy's name and money and fancy things and – and Bach. Stupid fucking composer – he just had to make something so good that Nadine's stupid neighbor played it all the fucking time."

"Okay," Leyla murmured, scooting her chair back as she slipped Nadine's beer out of her hands. "You are completely wasted, so I think it's time to let me take you home."

"Oh, I'm just getting started," Nadine argued, allowing her friend to pull her up from the table, probably because she was such a people pleaser.

Stupid woman.

He rolled his eyes as Leyla hooked her arm through Nadine's and helped the blonde stumble out of the bar, waiting precisely five minutes (he didn't know how long it took to stuff a drunk, angry woman into a car) before leaving. The second his feet hit the floor, he knew he'd need a cab, which was so damn annoying because he never got drunk.

_Ever. _

"Whatever," he muttered, shoving open the back door to the bar. He swore under his breath when he saw Leyla holding Nadine's hair back as the blonde threw up in a trashcan. He rocked back on his feet, debating on whether or not to help, finally deciding to walk over. "Hey."

Leyla's eyes widened when she looked up and saw Johnny standing across from her, and she couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Uh, were you in…" He nodded. "Oh, well, I suppose you know then that she's had loads to drink and-"

"Yeah, whatever," he interrupted, rolling his eyes as he batted her hands away from Nadine's hair, replacing them with his own. "I'll get her home. You can go back inside."

"I don't know if I should," the nurse hesitated, glancing at Nadine who was still slumped over, oblivious to the exchange going on behind her. "She's really drunk and-"

"I was going to get a cab back to my place. She's my neighbor," he shrugged, wrinkling his nose when the scent of tequila made its way into the air. "So, it works out."

"Alright," she nodded, looking across the parking lot as a cab pulled into the parking lot. "That should be ours – are you sure? I mean…" She leaned down and tried to look at Nadine, who simply nodded because words were of no use at this point. "Okay, well…be nice to her, Zacchara. I'm warning you."

**********

"Drink this."

Nadine snatched the bottle of water from Johnny and did her best to curl against the door as furthest from him as possible, but he seemed to grow closer despite her attempts.

She fumbled with the lid of the bottle, prompting him to reach over and unscrew the lidit. "Thanks…I think," she muttered, closing her eyes as she savored the taste of the water.r.

She hadn't the slightest idea as to where the water had come from, but aAnything would have tasted better than the combination of tequila and beer in reverse form.

"You're welcome," he replied, sitting back against the leather seat, his eyes focused straight ahead.

She was drunk so she could have been wrong, but nothing sounded welcoming about his reply – not that she could blame him. She wasn't sure whether or not he had been in the bar, but unless Johnny frequented poorly lit parking lots in sketchy areas of town, he had undoubtedly heard every word she'd said to her friends.

"Tequila does really strange things to me," she said, lifting her head from the window to look over at him. "I know that alcohol is an aphrodisiac for some people. Like Kelly – one of my friends at the bar. She drinks and she likes to have sex…which you probably didn't want to know, but I'm not like that. No tequila doesn't make me want to have sex – I just talk…_a lot."_

His lips didn't so much as twitch in amusement and his eyes didn't soften even a little bit.

"Sometimes I embellish things," she continued, fumbling to put the lid back onto the water, only this time he didn't reach over to help. "And I speak without thinking-"

"That's not just alcohol induced," he muttered, glaring at the cab driver when he gave Johnny a curious look.

He probably thought they were having some stupid lover's quarrel or something.

Ew.

"Well, I don't always mean-"

"You don't have to apologize," he interrupted stiffly, leaning forward to tell the driver to turn at the next corner. He was taking the short route home, probably because being this close to her was infuriating, but she hadn't asked him for help. He'd just taken it upon himself to shove her into a cab and Leyla had just let him.

Oh, her best friend was in for it.

"Something tells me you aren't the type of woman who says things she doesn't mean," he added, finally shifting his eyes tolooking at her. "And if you say that I'm some selfish, spoiled rich kid who doesn't know a fucking thing, then you probably believe thatit."

"Well, not exactly," she murmured, groaning as she pushed herself up.

"That's comforting," he huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Will you let me explain?" she asked, swearing when the can cab ran over a bump causing her to slosh and she sloshed water all over herself.

"I don't need you to," he smirked, leaning over and narrowing his eyes at her, "because contrary to what you believe, _Nurse_ Crowell, I don't think very highly of you either."

"Now you're just trying to be mean," she replied, looking away from him as she pulled at her wet jeans.

"No, I'm just being as honest as you, only I don't need whiskey tequila to do it," he said spitefully, glaring at her despite her refusal to look at him. "I'm sorry that I'm not some lonely, people pleaser who only does nice things for the sake of looking goodbeing liked. You're so caught up in doing things for other people so they'll like that you're not even living your own life."

"Oh, you don't know enough about me to say something like that," she argued, turning towards him, relieved to see that they were just a couple of blocks from their building.

"Do I even need to list off the things you said about me at the bar? When to my face you're on your knees and begging me to write Nikolas a fat check?" He scoffed and held out his hand, proudly ticking items off on his fingers. "You live by yourself with a bunch of stuffed Muppets and a cat named after a damn television character. He's probably your best friend because it's easier for you to be around animals than it is people. And that's because you're always talking about how fulfilling being a nurse is and how great it is to help people, and you can't understand why some people just don't give a shit. The funny thing is that allAll you've done since I met you is complain – about your schedule, your hours, and the stress of being Nikolas' friend – and that's because you're too afraid to tell these people to back off and leave you alone. You'll bend over backwards for anyone because no one can dislike you. And you like that they like you – that everyone raves about how nice and dependable Nadine is, when they probably just see a girl they can use to do anything they want."

"Shut up," she warned, clenching her fists at her sides, imagining in her tequila haze what it would be like to punch him in the face. "You don't know anything about my life or where I come from and why I do the things I do, so shut the hell up."

"For once, I'd just like you to do something that _you_ wanted to do to do – not something that works for everyone else, but something that works for you, but you can't. You have to think about how your choices affect Nikolas or your stupid cat – Hell, five minutes after meeting youme, you were ready to grovel at my feet because, one, Nikolas needed me, and two, you thought that meant I had to like you." He rolled his eyes as the cab pulled up to the front of the building, both of them lurching forward as it stopped. "I think I liked you more when you were the bitch of a nurse in the break room – at least then you were acting like a real person."

She cleared her throat, fighting the urge to throw up again as she dug through her purse for a twenty and tossed it over the seat to the driver. She opened the door, glancing at Johnny before she slid out. "You can have the elevator," she muttered. "I'll take the stairs."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Ehhh," Nadine groaned, rolling onto her back and staring up at her ceiling, her stomach churning. She kicked the blanket away from her legs, almost rolling off the couch in the process, catching herself just in time to save Ricky Ricardo's life. The cat looked up from the floor where he was sprawled out on his back, looking like he often did after having too much catnipeating too much. "Do not look at me like that."

The cat meowed in reply, rolling onto his feet and stretching, before jumping eloquently onto the couch and landing flat on her stomach.

"Ooof," she grunted, trying to push him away, but he dug his claws into her shirt, so she relented. She closed her eyes and started reciting an alphabetized list of anti-psychotic medications to focus on anything but her painful stomach where tequila was rolling around in waves.

"Stop Ricky," she moaned, swatting the cat tenderly on the head, whose only response was to paw at her even harder. "Haven't you ever had too much tequila?" He meowed again, nuzzling her palm, and then and nipping at her when she failed to pet him. "Yeah, need I remind you about the time you got into the catnip?"

He meowed louder this time. Or maybe it was a borderline hiss. Either way, he was obviously telling her to not throw bricks in glass houses, but at least she hadn't chewed a hole in the cupboard door in an attempt to get to some food. Instead, she'd taken far too many tequila shots and insulted her neighbor and Nikolas' investor in the worst possible of ways.

Okay, so clearly she was far guiltier than her cat.

"He was mean too, Ricky," she pointed out, her eyes fluttering closed as she recalled every horrible word Johnny had said to her. The cat nipped at her hand, eliciting another swat. "Stupid boys." She rolled onto her side, causing the cat to roll off off of her and onto the floor. "You always take up for each other."

Ricky's paw shout up from the floor, batting at her hand, and when she swatted at him, he took off through her apartment.

At least he was the kind of boy who knew when to go away.

She moaned into the couch cushion because she didn't have enough energy to scream, which was a good thing. Johnny was probably waiting to hear her scream through the walls, to cry even, and she wasn't going to let him get the best of her, even if he already had.

No one had ever said anything like that to her before, and she imagined no one had ever said the things she said to Johnny, and as Aunt Rayleen always said, liquor made the tongue loose and the only person responsible for that was the one drinking it.

Honestly, she didn't exactly dislike Johnny Zacchara, but she didn't like him very much other. He made it quite difficult, and if it wasn't for those strange moments where he actually did something nice like giving her cat milk or helping home (even if was just to insult her), liking him would be very impossible.

She might have actually been tempted to apologize if she hadn't meant what she said. Obviously, his desire to torment her stemmed from something, and maybe it was the fact that she didn't kiss his ass, which he was clearly used to people doing. The only thing she really felt guilty about was making it sound like she'd been nice to him just because she wanted his money, even if it was partly true.

Great, she was no better than anyone who had kissed his ass because they were on his payroll.

Actually, she was worse because she was kissing his ass to get on his payroll.

Sort of.

"Shit," she groaned, rubbing her hand over her face as she pushed herself up on her elbows, glaring at her door when someone knocked on it.

Now she was going to have face him in the middle of a hangover stupor. Her makeup was probably smeared, her hair in a mess of tangles, and she probably smelled like she bathed in tequila. Her nose wrinkled as she slowly sat up and put her feet on the floor, vaguely remembering leaning over a garbage can outside the bar.

So, maybe she _had_ bathed in tequila.

She groaned again when the knocking persisted, and she hoped he was at least coming to apologize if he was knocking on her door this early in the morning. At least, she assumed it was early. Sunlight was streaming in through the curtains of her window, but it was soft, not as bright and sweltering as it often made the room in the afternoon.

"Coming!" she called out raggedly, wincing when she stood up. Her knees wobbled and her stomach continued to churn as she walked over to the door. She tried to comb out her hair with her fingers, her mouth suddenly going dry, and finally she figured to hell with it, and jerked open the door. "Oh…Nikolas."

"Don't sound so excited to see me," he teased, his eyes sweeping over her. His nose twitched as she waved him inside, but thankfully he didn't comment. He was far too much of a gentleman to insult a lady that way.

"Sorry, I just thought you were…" She shrugged, starting to close the door, but stopped when she noticed her doormat was missing. "I don't know what I thought." She shoved the door closed, telling herself that she'd solve that mystery later, though she didn't have to question where it was.

"Leyla called and told me you might be feeling a little hungoverhung over," he explained, slipping a bottle of aspirin from his pocket. "I thought I'd check on you."

"Thanks," she grinned, walking over to take the bottle from his hand.

Nikolas forced a smile as he scratched his forehead. "She, uh, also said you were hanging out with Johnny Zacchara." Nadine grunted, suddenly not liking where this was going. "Is it safe to say that your issues with him are over?"

She cringed, tossing the aspirin bottle back and forth between her hands. "Um, not exactly." He sighed exhaustedly, shaking his head, and she knew she had to say something before he lost all hope. "It's not all my fault, Nikolas! He's so…impossible!"

He looked anything but convinced.

"I can't help it. He started these _issues_ by telling me I had to convince him why he should donate," she explained, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew she looked like a whinying teenager, but she didn't care. "He's an awful neighbor. Says the most awful things. And does the stupidest things like sticking spoons down the garbage disposal."

Nikolas just looked at her and she briefly wandered if he had ever actually used a garbage disposal.

Oh, the life of a Prince.

"Or he feeds my cat. Or tells me I want people to like me," she continued to rant. "He didn't have to help me home last night. Or tell me he was lactose intolerant. Or show up on my doorstep asking for-"

"Nadine," he interrupted, holding up his hand like he often did when he needed her to catch her breath. "Maybe Johnny just wanted to spend some time with you."

"What?" she asked dumbly.

"He's new in town," Nikolas explained, sounding as though this should have been relatively easy to understand. "You're a cute girl."

She tried to pretend that her heart didn't flutter the tiniest bit. So what if he was in love with a dead girl? He was still a Prince and when a Prince says – whatever, she wasn't even going into it.

"Maybe he just wanted to spend some time with you," he repeated, crossing his arms over her chest. "And if he does…"

"I am not selling myself for some stupid investor," she huffed, angry that he would even ask her to consider such a thing. "Even if I did flub the whole deal." She ignored the way he sighed as his eyes softened. _"No."_

**********

"Well, normally I'd say I was surprised that you were living in a dump," Claudia murmured, kicking around the numerous beer cans that littered her brother's floor. Occasionally she came across an empty bottle of liquor. "But I'm not. This just proves that you are incapable of taking care of yourself, John. Maybe I should send a maid over-"

"Just get out," Johnny grunted, laying his arm over his eyes as he shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Why he'd bought a piece of furniture that was so damn hard, he'd never know. Surely, Claudia was to blame.

"Did you have a party with your new townie friends?" she asked, leaning over the back of the couch and jabbing him in the stomach.

He sat up hurriedly, smacking her hand away. "What the hell do you want?" he asked, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to hold his face in his hands.

Fuck, his head hurt.

"We were supposed to have breakfast today," she reminded him, sitting on the back of the couch and clucking her tongue. "To talk about you believe you aren't wasting your time and daddy's money." Her noise wrinkled as she leaned over and sniffed. "At least you're spending it on the top shelf stuff."

"Our father left the money to _me_," he reminded her, pushing himself up from the couch and starting towards the kitchen, knowing she'd follow. "You have more than enough money so stop pestering me. Go back to Milan, Claudia."

"And let you have all this fun in my absence?" she asked, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen. "I really think you should let me send a maid over."

"No," he grunted, digging through one of the cabinets for aspirin, and swearing when he couldn't any.

"Come on," she pressed, stepping past him to sniff poke around the dirty dishes that were piled in the sink. "This place obviously needs it, and I can send that cute, little blonde one you so much adored when you were living at the house."

"She was annoying," he spat, slamming the cabinet door closed, the sound exceptionally loud inside his head.

"Or maybe you prefer another weird, but cute – I guess, depending on what you consider cute, quirky. Yes, quirky. A quirky, little blonde who doesn't admire Bach as much as you," she murmured, arching her eyebrows as she stared at him. "Really, isn't that what this is all about?"

"Stop having me followed," he barked, tearing out of the kitchen, desperate to put distance between him and his sister before he physically hurt her. A man was capable of cruel things amidst a bad hangover.

"Stop doing things that make me have to babysit you," she groaned, following after him, her heels clicking annoyingly against his wood floors. "Pull yourself together. Take a shower. Put on a damn suit. And take back daddy's company."

"I don't want it," he growled, crossing the room to the corner where his piano sat. He sat down in a hurry, his feet finding the pedals comfortably as his fingers slid over the keys.

Claudia hated his piano.

Actually, she hated music period, which Johnny believed was because only a person with needed feelings could to understand music.

Claudia was lacking very much in that department.

She ranted on, her voice rising above the music, and the louder she bitched, the harder he played until, "Stop acting like a spoiled, rich shithead!"

His fingers slammed against the keys, the sounds reverberating through the apartment so loudly it was almost deafening. "I am not," he growled, jumping up from the piano so quickly that he knocked over his bench. "I am not a spoiled, rich shithead. If you think for a second that I want any of this – the fucking money, the fucking name, the fucking crazy ass legacy, not to mention the annoying sister who is about five seconds away from being hurt very badly – you're wrong."

Claudia stiffened, her lips curving in amusement as he stalked towards. "I. Don't. Want. This." His chest heaved as he stopped in front of her, his eyes snapping towards the door. "Now get out."

"Wow," she purred, laughing under her breath as she spun on heels and started towards the door. "That must have been one hell of a lover's quarrel."

Snarling, he grabbed the first thing he could and flung it towards the door, swearing when it fell several feet short, making a pathetic noise as it landed on the floor. He swore as he stalked over, his fists tightening at his sides as the bright, pink doormat came into view.

"Fucking cat," he hissed, kicking it against the floor, but it bucked against the wood, and nearly tripped him. Swearing again, he jerked it up from the floor and stalked to the kitchen, where he jerked open a drawer and dug around for a permanent marker. Smoothing the doormat out against on the counter, he pulled the lidp off the marker with his teeth, spitting it onto the floor as he leaned over and went to work.

Never before had he been so embarrassed in his entire life, which wasn't fair because everything she Nadine had said had been wrong.

Sure, there might have been a time when he would have used the Zacchara name and fortune to get by. It was enough to get him through private school and college, and it would probably buy him a PHD should he choose to actually get one, but those days were behind him. He didn't want acclaim and women based on his name, but more so his actions (and not just the kind that happened in the bedroom).

She was just like every other asshole that had misread him and judged him by his name, and she had a lot of balls to point fingers at him when she was so tightly wound and stupid herself.

God, women were just so stupid.

"Ha," he grinned, rocking back on his feet as he surveyed his work. The little music notes coming out of the cat's head and his silly little message scrawled messily across the bottom, which may count as a threat, but he hoped it didn't. She would be the uptight kind to press charges on him. "Ha. Ha. Ha."

He held his work out in front of him as he started for the door, knowing it was so petty and childlike, but it was ridiculous how much she'd gotten under his skin. All because he just wanted to have a little fun, maybe get a rise out of her, and maybe he did wanted to know what she saw in that stupid Prince.

He knew he should have been guilty, especially when pondered the possibility that she might cry. She was a nice person, the kind of girl that should never cry, but it wasn't his fault that she had to be so damned annoying. He might have even liked her before he learned what she really thought, though she'd probably never forgive him after what he had saidsay, but they were things she needed to hear.

And wWhat she had said to him were most definitely _not_ things he needed to hear. They were stark judgments he'd been running from his entire life, and the last person he wanted to hear them from were her.

Pulling open the door, he peeked into the hallway, listening for her next door, but much to his surprise he only heard silence. There was no doubt that she wasn't home because if she was, he would have heard her talking to Ricky.

She talked to that damn cat about everything.

Smugly, he walked into the hallway and strode over to her door, carefully placing his handiwork on the ground. "Ha," he grunted again, no sound ever more satisfying than that. "Fuck you, Kitty."

**********

Nadine was never drinking tequila again.

Most people swore of liquor but never held to their promise. She was going to be the exception and never touch that damn devil drink again for as long as she lived. Nothing was worse than dealing with sick kids all day at the clinic after drinking a bottle of booze.

_Nothing._

Their whines were whinier, their cries louder, and picking them up just hurt entire body, which she knew was her punishment courtesy of Nikolas. He had been anything but pleased with her that morning, so when he asked her to work that afternoon at the clinic – her only day off, she knew he was trying to punish her.

And he was doing a damned good job of it.

She spent most of the afternoon going over the previous night and trying to find a way to ease the tension between her and Johnny. Despite her personal feelings, Nikolas needed him as a business associate, and it wasn't right of her to screw things up. She owed him that much as his employee, which was why she rode the elevator to her floor with trembling knees.

Nadine was going to apologize.

It might not be a hundred percent authentic or even believable, but she was going to apologize for being unprofessional and suggest they kept keep their relationship focused on the clinic, even if it meant giving him a thousand reasons to donate.

She would do this.

She groaned when the elevator doors dinged, announcing the arrival of her floor, and she contemplated how easily she could just slip right past his apartment without stopping. How she could tell Nikolas she had tried, but he wasn't in, and how she could just – wait.

Frowning, she hurried towards her door when she saw that her bright, pink doormat had returned. She grinned, telling herself that maybe she didn't have to apologize because he was obviously doing it for her, and it felt nice to have won.

Or at least it did for a split second, because then she was actually standing in front of the doormat that had been gratified destroyed and Bach-ified with a stupid magic marker. And the message – ugh! – it was just the cruelest of all things, and she refused to let it go.

All resistance fled in an instance, and she found herself beating on his door, huffing loudly when he answered, a huge grin on his face. "That's it, Zacchara," she hissed, jabbing him in the chest with a slender finger. "This. Is. War."


	8. Chapter 8

**Attention Readers:**

I just wanted to let you all know that I will **no** longer be updating my fics on this site and that within the next couple weeks or so, I'll have the account removed in its entirety.

I have been having so many issues with uploading my documents from Word and the documents still containing tons of mistakes that aren't in the copy I have saved on my computer. I've tried countless ways of avoiding this, but it's still happening, and lately I've been getting lots of PMs/Emails/Comments about the lack of editing. It's as frustrating for me as it is for you to read, and I'm tired of not being able to fix it, especially when I spend so much time editing them.

I have a personal website with all my fanfics (as well as site exclusives) that you can find here linked on my author page. For some reason I couldn't link it here - just another reason to be pissed off with this site. You do have to register an account to read, but it only takes a few minutes. I send out email alerts every time a story is updated just like you receive on here or you can bookmark a thread to receive alerts when it's updated.

If you wish to continue reading the stories, you'll have to sign up for my site. I know it's inconvenient, but has proven to be more inconvenient than anything else for me, and I'm throwing in the towel.

Hopefully you're not too pissed off at me for doing this and I'll see you on the site.

Ambs


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